Botanica

We took advantage of the cooler temperatures this morning with a trip to Botanica in Wichita.

Four Months

Emma is four months old today and as sweet as ever!

She is such a little ray of sunshine with her bright-eyed, big-mouthed smiles. She brings so much joy to our family!

Her new tricks this month included rolling from back to tummy and laughing, but she doesn't do either one consistently yet. She is starting to be scared of strangers too, or at least she was a few days ago when I took her to a friend's baby shower. She cried and cried two different times when she didn't know the people holding her and I wasn't in sight. She smiled and stopped crying right when I took her back each time. She's a mama's girl, which is so sweet, but it's hard to see her so scared.

She still seems so small to me. She's my little doll. We haven't been to the doctor yet for her official weight, but according to our scale she is just shy of 14 pounds.

She really loves Natalie and Max and all their antics. Here she is smiling at Max:

What a blessed four months these have been!

Emma Swims

Emma went for her first swim last weekend while we were in Yates Center. She didn't love it, but she sure looked cute.

Truck Show

The kids loved climbing on and in all kinds of city trucks this morning at the library.

Siblings

Emma loves to watch Max and Natalie's antics. Her very first giggles came from watching them run around. She can't wait to be right in the middle of all the sibling fun.

Teeter Totter

Natalie and Max are perfectly matched for the teeter totter because for years they have weighed within a couple pounds of each other. Today they tried out the big teeter totter at the park, and they giggled the whole time.

Sweet Summer

Grandpa's Birthday

Braving the Buckets (almost)

Big Pool

Natalie and Max swam in the big pool with Ms. Renee at swimming lessons today!

And here is an unrelated but incredibly sweet picture of Emma smiling at Natalie:

Big Brother

Max has always loved holding Emma, but now he thinks it's really neat that she can sit on his lap or next to him in the chair.

Fun at the Farm

We had a great time at the family farm with all of Chris' family on Saturday.

Book Walk

As part of the summer reading program, the library puts on three Book Walks over the summer. We went on the first book walk yesterday. The pages of a children's book are on signs around the arboretum's walking path, so after a walk around the path, we had read the whole book. The kids really got into it and are excited to go on the next one in a couple weeks.

Water Giggles

Nebraska Vacation

We took a quick trip to Nebraska last week with Mark, Shawna, Jordan, and Alex. The kids loved staying in the hotels. The pools, big beds (with pillow lines drawn down the middle) and big breakfasts were the highlights. Emma must be a hotel-lover too because on the second night of our trip she slept about seven hours straight for the first time (and what I'm sure will be the last time for quite a while)!

Our first big stop was the Lincoln Children's Museum. It has three stories of fun. The kids' favorite part was the town complete with hospital, fire station, grocery store, and bank to name only a few.

Our second big stop was the Omaha zoo. What a great zoo! We went on a fun train ride, and Chris took the big kids on a "sky-fari" or the "flying benches" as they called it.

We played a hot game of miniature golf.

The highlight of our trip was all the time we got to spend at Aunt Jill's house. Chris' aunt, uncle, and cousin live in Omaha, and they so graciously had us over three days in a row for lots of delicious food and backyard fun.

The kids are racing college superstar athlete cousin Holly in a backyard obstacle course in this first picture:

We all had a great time, but we were all glad to get home. As we drove into town Sunday evening, Natalie said, "Hesston! My favorite town!"